


Janeway Swears

by KaCole



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Explicit Language, F/M, Family, Fluff, Humor, Romance, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-03
Updated: 2019-11-07
Packaged: 2021-01-21 13:03:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 2,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21299900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KaCole/pseuds/KaCole
Summary: Kathryn has a rule. She never swears in front of children, her superiors or her crew. Chakotay knows it's not always straight forward, though.
Relationships: Chakotay/Kathryn Janeway
Comments: 63
Kudos: 123





	1. Not in Front of Children, My Superiors or My Crew.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic popped into my head a long time ago, when someone in the Voyager book club said they imagined Janeway swore like a trooper. We just never saw that, but I got to wondering, perhaps she does swear, but no one but Chakotay really knows it.  
So this fic is a short exploration of that idea, with each example of swearing in its own short chapter. The finished project is probably only 2500 words ish.   
So here we have it. Janeway Swears. Obviously this fic includes bad language! Don't read if that offends.

The first time I heard the captain swear, we were on New Earth. It was early in our time there, a few hours after she suggested I start calling her Kathryn, but I hadn't quite gotten my head around the idea at that point. I had been fixing our evening meal, and she’d disappeared to use the sonic shower. This had been before the bathtub, of course. In fact, this sweary little incident inspired me to build it.

#

I heard a crack, and then a cry rang out from the small bathroom. "Shit, shit, shit!" 

Abandoning my pots and pans I hurried to the door. "Captain?"

No reply. I rapped on the flimsy panel with my knuckles. “Captain, are you alright?”

“I stubbed my toe on the damn shower tray,” she said. 

Reassured that she was irritated but not harmed, I shook my head in amusement and returned to cooking. This place was already bringing out a side of her I’d not seen before; I couldn’t imagine  _ Captain _ Janeway swearing on the bridge. Maybe the switch from calling her captain to Kathryn wouldn’t be as difficult as I thought.

When she limped from the bathroom, rubbing her hair and scowling, I nodded sympathetically towards her foot, trying to hide my amusement. “That sounded painful. Need me to grab the tricorder and check for broken bones?”

“No, I’m sure it’s fine.” She looked up and must have noticed my smirk. “Something funny?”

“Not at all. I’ve just never heard you swear before.”

She frowned. “Well. I have a rule. I don’t swear in front of children, my superiors, or my crew.”

I put my head to one side, and regarded her thoughtfully. “Like you said earlier, we’re not in a command structure anymore.”

“No, we’re not.” For a moment, the shadow of loss flickered across her face. The fact that we were stranded alone for the foreseeable future, perhaps for the rest of our lives, hit her hard if her glistening blue eyes were anything to go by. Her disquiet didn't last long, though: she squared her shoulders, waved her hand and growled, “Damn shower. I miss my bath already.”

I wasn’t fooled for a minute into believing that she missed her bathing arrangements most, not when her crew, her ship and any chance of seeing her family again were all gone. A wave of helplessness threatened to sweep over me, but I knew i had to shake it off, and fast. I decided there and then: I couldn’t lessen the pain of the loss, but I sure as hell could do something about the bath.

Kathryn unwound a lot while we were on New Earth, almost enough, I dared hope, for her to start falling for me. She relaxed day by day; her smile grew broader and more free. We were on a slow trajectory towards intimacy, or so I thought. She told me later that if I'd pressed her she wouldn't have turned me down. But, fool that I am, I decided to let her set the pace. So, when Tuvok contacted us, just as I was picturing her swimming naked in the river and wondering if then would be the right time to make my move, I was the one silently cursing.


	2. I’ve Missed your Colourful Language

Weeks later, we were back on  _ Voyager _ going through the painful readjustment of our relationship. She was still being careful around me, making sure we didn’t cross the lines we’d drawn between us. I understood, even if I didn't agree, but it was hard for us both. That evening I walked into her quarters with several PADDS in my hands. She had her head deep in the replicator panel on the wall.

"You  _ bitch _ ."

I stopped walking, startled. "I beg your pardon?"

"This damn replicator. It hates me."

I couldn’t help it. I laughed out loud.

She turned, her face flushed a rare shade of red, as she blustered, "Oh, I forgot myself."

I couldn’t keep a straight face. “No swearing in front of your crew, eh?”

“I’m sorry.”

"That's quite alright. I'm glad you're comfortable enough to swear in front of me again.” I moved to stand a little closer. “Would it be out of line to say I've missed your colourful language?"

She smiled up at me. "I must admit, I've missed that, too." Then she broke into a crooked grin. "Perhaps we should eat together again, sometimes. Tonight, if I can get this damn thing working."

"I'd like that."

"Me too. Come back at seventeen hundred? 

I left with a lighter heart. When I returned to find she'd set the lights low and replicated candles to accompany the admittedly less-than-stellar food, I didn't mind a bit, because I dared to believe it wasn't the swearing she missed, but  _ me _ .


	3. No More Fucking Rebellion

We grew closer, relied on one another more and more as the years went on, but I have to admit we travelled a bumpy road. Species 8472. The Borg. The  _ Equinox _ . To say we didn't always see eye to eye in those days is an understatement. Sometimes I thought we'd never find our way back to one another. Of course, now I understand that she was tying herself in knots trying to keep our relationship professional and maintain a command distance, but sometimes she cut me to the bone. 

After Teero hijacked the Maquis and forced us to take control of the ship, Kathryn was quietly furious with me. Seemed she thought that I, of all people, should have been able to resist. As she stepped out of the brig that I'd locked her in, her glare would have frozen a volcano, no matter that I'd released her the moment I realised what was happening. She hissed under her breath so only I would hear, "No more  _ fucking  _ rebellion?"

I guess in that moment, it made no difference to her that I had been utterly powerless in the face of Teero’s mind control. Yeah, things were pretty strained between us at that stage, and they got worse before they got better. 


	4. Michael Bloody Sullivan

Earth was a blue pinprick in her ready room window. We were two hours out from a rendezvous with Admiral Paris and the Pathfinder team. I’d come in holding PADDS that needed her authorisation, and with a more personal problem on my mind. Ineeded to tell her about me and Seven.

She checked off the requests, and handed the PADDS back without looking up. She didn’t smile. “Anything else?” 

My heart in my mouth, I blurted out, “I need to talk to you about Seven of Nine.”

Kathryn stopped, folded her arms over her chest and glared at me. “Yes?”

She stood up and paced away from the window, back towards her desk. Did she know? I cursed myself for not having told her sooner.

“Seven and I have been seeing each other, and—”

She snorted. "You think I care that you and Seven are screwing?" Her flushed face told a completely different story, though, and that just about made my blood boil. After all her coldness and indifference to me in recent months, she was jealous! After Kashyk and Jaffen and Michael Bloody Sulivan, she was furious at  _ me _ for a few lunch dates with Seven? I couldn't believe her nerve.

I stepped closer to her and hissed, “If you don’t care, what are you so worked up about?” 

"I don't give a damn who you fuck," she said. But I could see she was trembling.

I moved right up to her, far too close, I’ll admit, but I had to see her eyes. They told me the truth. She cared a great deal. "You’re lying," I said, my voice strained with incredulity. 

" _ Bastard _ ," she spat, and with that, she actually raised her hand to slap me. 

I don't know to this day if she’d have thought better of it and pulled back, because I grabbed her arm. She’s told me, since, that she doesn't know if she would have slapped me. She hopes she wouldn't have done it, but admits she was humiliated, furious, and as as close to losing control as she'd been in years. She's embarrassed about it, even now, decades later. 

Back then, something snapped in me. "I haven't slept with Seven, and I won't, because I’m not in love with her," I said in a low voice.

She tried to jerk away, but I wouldn't release her. In fact, I grabbed her other arm too. "Let me go," she said, darkly.

Clearly, this was not my finest hour.

I pulled her closer, until we were toe to toe, staring each other down, like the very first time we met on her bridge. So much had happened since then. Our bond, forged of necessity, came to be so much more: deep understanding, mutual respect, a friendship laced with longing that had grown essential to us both. 

It felt like everything hinged on this moment—that what we did and said next would shape the course of our lives. I drew in a shuddering breath. I had to shape shift from dutiful first officer into the warrior who would win her heart. It was crunch time.

"It's always been you, Kathryn," I rumbled. "You're the one I love. _ " _

Her eyes widened, her lips parted into a gasp.

We've never worked out who started what came next. Suddenly Kathryn Janeway was in my arms, her chest pressed close to me, her lips hot against mine, and we were kissing, hard and fast, long and deep, like our lives depended on it. 

From that moment forward there was no going back.


	5. Making Kathryn Swear

"Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Kathryn writhed on our bed, naked and frantic. Exquisitely beautiful. I thanked every Spirit I could think of, daily, that she was finally mine to hold. 

It hadn't taken long for me to work out  _ exactly _ how to make Kathryn swear, and within a few weeks I had bringing her pleasure down to a fine art. My tongue on her clit, my fingers inside her, oh yes, that’s the way to get her howling. I suppose it’s just as well we waited until we had our own apartment in San Francisco before we started sleeping together, because Kathryn is definitely a screamer. The cabin walls on  _ Voyager _ wouldn’t have left much to the crew’s imagination. I asked her, after a particularly noisy round of lovemaking, if that was the reason she made me wait so long.

“No! I can be quiet during sex if I need to be!” she protested, rolling off me and snuggling by my side.

“You never have been yet.”

She lay her head on my chest. “But I  _ could  _ be. If there was a reason.”

“What if we had children?” I said. “Could you keep quiet enough to let them sleep in the next room?”

She propped herself up on her elbow and stared at me. For a moment I feared I that this wasn’t a conversation she was ready to have. But then she leaned over and kissed me.

“I could turn the volume down and let our children sleep,” she said. “But there’s something I think we should do first.”


	6. We Both Swear

I couldn’t take my eyes off her that glorious afternoon, a year after we returned from the Delta Quadrant. She was stunning in a pale dress, her hair glossy and long. She was also trembling. Truth be told, I don’t think I’d ever seen her as nervous, before or since. She'd faced the Borg without flinching, but a room full of our family and friends had her shaking. I know why. She feared something would steal our happiness before I could put the ring on her finger. But I guess we’d had our share of bad luck and the third time really is the charm, because nothing went wrong. 

You see, I know Kathryn Janeway swears, but on that day we both swore a vow, for better or worse.

_ I do. _


	7. Joe Janeway

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note for non-British readers who are not familar with the phrase "turn the air blue" . It means to use a lot of rude words!

"You're doing great," I told her. 

"Don't tell me I'm doing great," she snarled. "Tell me it's nearly fucking over."

I hadn't been subjected to the Janeway death-glare for years, but right then I didn’t mind a bit. 

You see, Kathryn doesn't have child bearing hips and she'd been in labour for more hours than we had been years lost in the Delta Quadrant.

I glanced at the doctor, who said, "I can see the baby's head. One big push." 

By the time Joe was born, the air was truly blue.


	8. Pissing in the Pool

“Get up the stairs now, young man,” Kathryn said sternly to our son. “I’m very disappointed in you.”

As she followed Joe through the door with our new baby daughter in her arms, I took the diaper bag, and sighed. “What has our eldest done now?” 

I watched Joe skulk upstairs and into his bedroom, his eyes downcast.

“Let me get Taya into her cot, and I’ll tell you,” Kathryn said. 

Half an hour later, I put a glass of wine in Kathryn’s hand, and looked at her expectantly. “Well? What did Joe do to earn your disappointment?”

She let her head fall back against the sofa. “He pissed in the Paris’s swimming pool, and when Miral noticed and yelled at him, he whacked her.”

“Sounds rather rash on his part.”

“It was. By the time Tom and I separated them Miral had bitten Joe on the face.”

“Uh oh. It must be love.”

“He’s three. She’s four. I think they’re a little young for Kingon mating rituals, don’t you?”

I laughed and kissed her. “I suppose so.” Then I kissed her again and whispered, “What about us?”

“Oh, we are the perfect age for mating rituals,” she assured me. “But no biting.”


	9. The Day Kathryn Did Not Swear

When Joe Janeway married Miral Paris, Kathryn struggled to swallow happy tears. She held my hand as tight as she ever had.

That day, she didn't swear.


	10. Vice-Admiral Janeway Does Not Swear

We were at Gretchen's place with Miral, Joe and their kids, and Kathryn had disappeared into the study to take yet another urgent communique from Starfleet. Shalar, our eldest grandchild, who is seven, had unknown to Kathryn, been hiding under the desk. 

As Kathryn shooed her out of the room, Shalar looked only slightly sheepish. 

"You shouldn't have been in there," Joe chided her. 

Never one to take a rebuke laying down, Shalar fired back, "Grandma said a bad word."

Joe shot an embarrassed glance in my direction and then ruffled his daughter’s hair. "Shalar, your grandma doesn't swear."

My youngest grandson, Dimir, just three years old, looked wide eyed, and I feared that if the truth was revealed at his tender age, his grandmother might just fall off the pedestal he had her on.

Shalar crossed her arms. "She did!"

I bent down to Dimir, who had a very serious look on his part Kingon face. “Listen, your grandmother is one of the most decorated Starfleet admirals and diplomats of all time. She devised and coordinated the Meastrekat Defence against the Borg invasion. She negotiated the Romulan Accords. _Vice_- _ Admiral Janeway _ doesn't swear,” I said firmly.

But, in a life long lived and well loved, through good and bad, from the Delta Quadrant and back again, I know that isn’t strictly true. Kathryn Janeway puts on a fine show of being Starfleet, most of the time. She doesn’t knowingly swear in front of children, or her superiors or her crew. But I know my Kathryn like nobody else in the universe. I love every part of her, every quirk and every fault line. And I know that yes, Kathryn Janeway swears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks everyone for all your comments on this fic. Everyone made me smile and spurred me on!


End file.
